Activision's wars and heroes

War, superheroes and movie licenses - Activision's E3 line-up is a fair mix, and offers more for PC fans than a lot of its rivals seem to be laying on. DOOM III will of course make an appearance (both on PC and Xbox), and in the FPS stakes it's joined by the Call of Duty expansion pack United Offensive (in development at Gray Matter). Just as interesting though will be the sights of Rome: Total War and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the latter of which is of course based on Valve's Source Engine technology.

On the multi-platform side of things, X-Men Legends will be worth checking up on, but otherwise it's largely movie licenses, and we're going to take some convincing before we get excited about Spider-Man 2: The Game following the last effort. Still, the movie ought to be worth a punt. Other movie-based titles on Activision's stand will include DreamWorks' Shark Tale (as mentioned in SCEA's recent E3 gaffe), and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Event, which is based on the Jim Carrey movie of the same name.

Notable absentees at this point include Lionhead's The Movies, console FPS Call of Duty: Finest Hour, and whatever the next Tony Hawk game winds up being called, although there's bound to be more than this just this octet on display when we land next week, because there always is and everybody always looks extremely smug about it when the hacks find out.